SOLVANG — After six months of training, and after what felt like six days and six nights of torrential rains through the northern part of California, Lance Armstrong emerged.

Out of retirement, out of the rain, and hopefully, once and for all, bringing his sport out of the shadows of a dark era it still regrets, and can’t yet forget.

Fittingly, on this gloriously clear, crisp day, he rode a bike that had been

stolen from him a week ago, subsequently recovered by the Sacramento Police Department, and deemed fit to ride once more.

The bike, like his career, is getting a fresh start and new purpose.

“Ride this one like YOU stole it,” he painted onto the side of the bike before Friday’s Stage6 of the Amgen Tour of California.

And from the very start of the 15-mile time trial through the rolling hills and vineyards of this quaint area made famous by the movie “Sideways,” that’s exactly what he did.

The crowds here, and throughout the Tour of California – which organizers said had passed the 1million mark heading into today’s stage from Santa Clarita to Pasadena – have loved every second of Armstrong’s run.

At age 37, just six months into this most recent comeback, Armstrong is already strong enough to place sixth in this talented field of 106 cyclists. He completed Friday’s stage in 14th place, one minute and 16 seconds behind the stage winner, and overall leader Levi Leipheimer.

Afterwards, he admitted the 31-minute ride took a bit of a toll on him.

“I’m tired,” he said. “I haven’t done a time trial for a long time, so it’s a new sensation. I raced as hard as I could. I wanted to be in the top15, so I’m not unhappy. … There was no pressure because everything was about Levi.”

Armstrong’s goals here are modest. Help Leipheimer, his Astana teammate, capture his third straight Tour of California; test his fitness; and prepare for a run at what would be an epic crescendo to his storied career: an eighth Tour de France title.

His motivations for doing all this are grand.

Since he retired from professional cycling three years ago, Armstrong has chased more windmills than this Danish town in the Santa Ynez Valley holds. He’s run three marathons, dated rock stars, testified before Congress and gone for a ride with President George W. Bush.

But nearest and dearest to his famously strong heart is LiveStrong and the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which supports cancer patients and promotes cancer research.

“There are two parts to the comeback,” Armstrong said at the pre-race news conference in Sacramento last week. “One is to race. But more importantly is the thought and the idea to take LiveStrong around the world.”

After toying with the idea of running for political office in his home state of Texas, Armstrong told a Vanity Fair interviewer last September that he thinks the United States should have a cancer czar, and that the disease, which claims nearly eight million lives a year, should be addressed at a global level.

This comeback, the second of his career after he battled a particularly malignant form of testicular cancer in his mid-20s, is the best way he knows how to raise awareness.

But this isn’t some publicity stunt. Armstrong believes he can win.

So do his fellow cyclists.

The general assumption is that Armstrong and Leipheimer have arranged a sort of quid pro quo, where Armstrong will help Leipheimer win this Tour of California, which concludes Sunday in Escondido, and Leipheimer will provide support to Armstrong as he tries for his eighth Tour de France in July.

“He’s using these races to get back into it, and he looks very good on the bike,” Leipheimer said of Armstrong after winning Friday’s stage. “He’s strong. He’s probably the strongest teammate I have.”

Asked whether he thought Armstrong might try and capture one of the final two stages of the race, Leipheimer shook his head.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “He knows how cycling works. He won the Tour seven times, and you can’t do it without your team. He’s a great teammate and I think that he will focus on helping me win the race.

“I’d be proud to help him win an eighth Tour de France or a first Giro d’Italia.”

A happy byproduct of all this is that it brings cycling back onto the world stage and gives the sport a chance to show it’s cleaned up its act, once and for all, after years of being dogged by performance-enhancing drug scandals.

As part of his comeback, Armstrong said he’d subject himself to “the most comprehensive anti-doping program” in the world and everything about his comeback would be defined by “transparency” and “authenticity.”

Originally, his plan was to work with with anti-drug expert Don Catlin, but he later backed out of the arrangement because “it was ultimately too complicated” from a logistical standpoint. Catlin said the decision was mutual.

Still, Armstrong says that “I’ve been tested 16 or 17 times already, outside of an independent program, so I’m telling you I’m as clean as a whistle.”

Armstrong has been posting the results of his tests on the LiveStrong.org Web site in an effort to demonstrate to the world, and the media, particularly in Europe, that seemed to consider his superhuman achievements only achievable with performance-enhancing drugs, despite the fact he never once tested positive.

“I think cycling takes some hard knocks, but at the end of the night we get to sleep well knowing that we’ve tested more than anyone else and been more vigilant that anyone else,” he said. “I always push for a global standard where everybody plays by the same rules. I don’t know that that will happen anytime soon, but it seems like cycling is on its way out of that dark spot and maybe baseball is entering that.”

On this day, though, the only dark spots around were to be found on the tops of former Tour de France champion Ivan Basso’s knees, as he bruised them badly during warmups and had to pull out of the race.

Although his time was not the fastest of the day, Armstrong has led everyone in this race out of the shadows, out of the rain, and into what they all hope is a fresh start.

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